Empowering the Creative Community

You Need Naysayers

Buffer recently highlighted advice from Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO of HubSpot, for those just starting out with an idea:

Seek out the most critical opinions of your plan that you can find. The natural tendency for a first-time entrepreneur is to fall in love with an idea and then look for friends and colleagues to support it. After all, who wants to have a fledgling idea crushed by naysayers? But these are exactly the types of folks you should be looking for.

Have them shred your plan and designs from top to bottom. If you find yourself agreeing with them and having doubts, then your plan (and possibly you) may not have the mettle to make it. But if you are able to defend it with conviction, repeatedly, then you probably have both the moxie to last through the long, tough grind you’re facing, as well as a plan that just might work.

Read the rest of “10 Most Counterintuitive Pieces of Advice from Famous Entrepreneurs” — which includes advice from Paul Graham and Jeff Bezos — here.